Stand for spring suspended hobby horse



Sept. 9, 1958 E. J. KoLLl-:R ETAL 2,851,235

STAND FOR SPRING SUSPENDED HOBBY HORSE Filed Nov. 28. 1955 United States Patent O 2,851,236 STAND FOR SPRING SUSPENDED HOBBY HORSE Edward J. Koller, Collierville, Tenn., and Chester J. Bohn, St. Louis, Mo., assignors to Wonder Products Company, Collierville, Tenn., a corporation of Tennessee Application November 28, 1955, Serial No. 549,359

2 Claims. (Cl. 248-165) The present invention relates to a base stand for spring suspended hobby horses or other devices, and more particularly relates to special improvements in the base stand.

While there are many known Variations of base stands for spring suspended devices, such as exercising devices or hobby horses or similar devices, many of these .have attending faults by virtue of being uneconomical to manufacture, or uneconomical to transport due to their size, or even unsteady or are of insufficient strength to properly support the device with the person using the same. Also, some of these devices having one or more of the foregoing diticulties are shipped to the ultimate user in a knocked-down (KD) condition for the user to assemble for himself. Most of these knocked-down base stands heretofore known have been difficult to assemble and have many parts which were often confusing to the person who attempts to assemble the base stand.

The causes for shipping these base stands in a knockeddown condition are several, but the most prominent among them is the shipping expense involved for large devices and large parcels such as the package which would contain a completely assembled base stand for a spring suspended hobby horse. Another prominent expense is the actual packaging expense which would be involved for a fully assembled base stand of this type.

Accordingly, it is an object and feature of the present .invention to provide a new and improved base stand for vide a base stand of improved characteristics.

The base stand of the instant invention, and the embodiment described in detail hereinbelow and in the embodiment illustrated in the drawings, is a four piece base stand wherein each section or piece has a leg portion and a foot portion with the free end of the foot portion attened to a thickness of about twice the wall thickness of the remainder of the section and offset a distance about one-half of the thickness of the iiattened end so that the four attened ends may be juxtaposed in a substantially interfacial relation with each other for solid assembly. Provision is also made in the foot portions and in the flattened end portions for bolts or other fastening means so that the entire base stand may ,be easily assembled merely by passing bolts through holes provided therefor and without any necessity of adding additional clamping parts and so forth.

It is, therefore, another object and feature of this invention to provide a base stand of improved strength and resiliency characteristics which is easily assembled and which has symmetrical parts that are easily nested .together for convenient assembly.

Another object of the invention is to provide a base stand of a plurality of sections which are easily nested together for convenient and small package shipping thereby reducing the shipping and packaging expenses.

Still other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become readily apparent to those skilled in the art and to others, from the following detailed description of the present invention and an embodiment `thereof, from the claims, and from the accompanying ydrawings: in which each and every detail shown is fully ice and completely disclosed as part of this specification, in which like reference numerals refer to like parts, and in which:

Figure l is an isometric illustration of a base stand embodying the principles of this invention and further showing the base stand with a hobby horse spring suspended therefrom;

Figure 2 is a fragmental view of the central joint portion of the base stand;

Figure 3 is a sectional view viewed as taken substantially along the line III-III of Figure 2;

Figure 4 is a sectional view viewed as taken substantially along the line IV-IV of Figure 2; and

Figure 5 is a plan view of the parts of the base stand nested together for convenient shipping and packaging.

In Figure l there is illustrated a base stand 10 embodying the principles of the present invention and shown as being more or less parallelepiped or pyramid congurated to support a spring suspended device 11 such as a hobby horse or other exercise device. ln the embodiment shown, the base stand 10 has four upstanding posts or legs 12, 13, 14 and 15 at the upper end of each of which there is provided means such as rings 16-16 to Vbe engaged as by hooking with springs 17-1'7 which are tensioned between the posts on the base 10 and securingmeans such as eyelets or the like 18-18 on the spring suspended device 11.

This general manner of mounting and suspending a hobby horse or exercise device or other similar article and the advantages of so supporting and suspending the same are fully disclosed and described in the United States Letters Patent 2,437,015, issued to William Baltz on March 2, 1948, and therefore will not be discussed in greater detail here.

The base stand of this invention, however, is composed primarily of four frame members or sections which are easily and conveniently secured together to form the base 10 and to firmly, safely and resiliently support the spring suspended device 11. The four posts or frame sections 12 through 15 are formed in symmetrical pairs (note Fig. 5) each with a leg portion 19, 20, 21 and 22, respectively, and each with a foot portion 23, 24, 25 and 26', respectively. The leg portion and the foot portion of each of the frame members or sections are actually portions of each integral frame member and differ by extending from a bend in the frame section which is herein referred to as a knee in each section as it appears at 27, 28, 29 and 30, respectively.

It is the free upper end of each of the leg portions .19 through Z2 of each of the frame members or sections 12 through 15 to which the springs 17-17 are connected. The angle of the bend at the knees 27 through 30, respectively, is more or less a right angle bend so that the leg portions 19 through 22 will extend upwardly when the base frame members 12 through 15 are secured together as hereinafter described. For purposes of stability and resilience, these bends at the knees 27 through 30 may be slightly acute.

The knees 27 through 30 are also bent in such a manner that the foot portions 23 through 26 extend generally diagonally towards the center of the bottom of the base rather than along the sides of an imaginary parallelepiped or pyramid which might contain the base and in the region where adjacent foot portions of the front frame members converge, these foot portions are again bent to be parallel and extend directly towards the center of the base, the bends being indicated generally at 31 and 32 on the foot portions 23 and 24, respectively. The rear foot portions 25 and 26 are similarly bent as at 33 and 34, respectively. Bending and other working of these frame members is permitted by a selection of the material from which the frame members are made, which material may be any one desired so long as it has sufficient strength, resiliency and workability. In this instance the material has been illustrated as being tubularly formed steel or other ferrous alloy which may be chrome or otherwise plated or otherwise coated as desired. As shown in Figure 5, the frame sections or members 12 through 15 are thus formed in symmetrical pairs which pairs include diagonally opposed members in the finally assembled base as shown in Figure l. That is, the base members 12 a'nd 14 are identical to each other as the members 13 and 15 are identical to each other but the members` 12 and 14 are symmetrical with respect to the members 13 and 15. This arrangement permits a very convenient assembly of the members for packaging as shown in Figure where the identical members 12 and 14 are nested with each other and the identical members 13 and 15 are nested with each other and then the pairs are juxtaposed so that the assembly will have a width of about one-half of the width of the assembled stand and a length of about one-half of that of the assembled stand so that the nested group will have an over-all packaging dimension of about one-quarter of that of the completed unassembled stand. Also this configuration of the parts permits very convenient packaging thereof as well as relatively small size packing thereby substantially reduces both packaging costs and shipping costs.

For assembling the stand and securing the parts together in the form shown in Figure 1, the free ends of each of the foot portions 23 through 26 has been acted upon so that the assembly may be conveniently accomplished and so that when the assembly is accomplished the base will be rm and strong. The manner of forming the free ends of the foot portions in accordance with this invention accomplishes not only foregoing results but also avoids the use of any additional parts other than bolts and nuts or similar securing devices and thus avoids the use of any spacing devices and clamping devices etc.

For this purpose, the free ends of the foot portions of these tubular members are flattened as at 35, 36, 37 and 38, respectively, on the foot portions 23, 24, 25 and 26, respectively. These attened ends may be flattened by any convenient machine or die operation so that they will have twice the thickness of the wall thickness of the remainder of the members, respectively, and so that they will extend in planes which are generally vertical when the base is fully assembled and set properly on the door. These flattened ends are also of identical lengths with each other so that they may be properly nested or interdigitated with an interfacial engagement therebetween when juxtaposed as described.

So that the attene'd ends 35 through 38 will properly t together, they are offset on the leg portions 23 through 26, respectively, so that they are neither flattened along the inside edge line of the legs as viewed in Figure 2 nor are they centered along the center lines of the leg portions. The offset is such that the inside face of the attened end is spaced from a line along the innermost portion of the legs by a distance substantially equal to the wall thickness of the frame members. This offset is so provided that proper assembly may be effected as viewed in Figure 2 wherein it is shown that when the front legs 12 and 13 are juxtaposed, the space between the offset ends 35 and 36 thereof is just sufficient to accommodate interdigitating the offset flattened end 37 of the leg 14 therebetween. Similarly, the offset is such that juxtaposition of the legs 14 and 15 leaves a space between the flattened ends 37 and 38 suicient only to accommodate the flattened end 35 of the foot portion 23.

With all of the members assembled as shown in Figure 2 with the foot portions 25 and 26 juxtaposed in with the foot portions 23 and 24 juxtaposed and with the fiattened ends interdigitated, they may be secured together by screws or bolts such as the bolts 39 and 40 which pass through appropriate holes in the flattened end portions 35 through 38, and by bolts 41 and 42 which pass through appropriate holes in the foot portions of the frame members.

In Figure 3 is it illustrated how the base may be assembled with the bolt 40 passing through properly aligned punch holes or drill holes in the flattened ends 35 through 38 and secured by a nut 40a. In this gure the nut 42a is also shown on the bolt 42 passing through holes in the foot sections 25 and 26. Here it is also seen that the interdigitated flattened ends 35 through 38 are also assembled in interfacial engagement with each other as facilitated by the offset arrangement thereof with respect to the remainder of the foot portions 23 through 26.

In Figure 4 is seen how the bolt 41 passes through appropriately aligned holes in the foot portions 23 and 24 and passes the same together by a nut 41a on the bolt. Figure 4 also illustrates the manner in which the apertures in the foot sections formed to prevent burring thereof and thereby to reduce machining expense to remove burrs, or to remove any danger to persons assembling the base stand from burrs if the burrs were not removed. Herein it is shown that when the holes are punched in the foot portions, the areas surrounding the holes are 'dented inwardly whereby any burrs that might appear or any rough edges that might appear will exist only on the interior of the tubes. These indentations 24a and 24b on the tube 24 and 23a and 23b on the tube 23 also facilitate convenient assembly since they serve as guide dents in the tube to guide the end of the screws through the apertures therein.

This over-all assembly thus provides a highly improved base stand which is more economical and more convenient in many respects. From the foregoing it will be observed that numerous modifications and variations may be effected in this device which is of general utility even though a particular embodiment thereof has been described and illustrated herein. Therefore we intend to cover all such modifications and variations which fall in the true spirit and scope of the novel concepts and principles of this invention.

We claim as our invention:

1. A base stand comprising four frame members formed of the same tubular material and arranged to be secured together, said members being identical in pairs and the pairs being symmetrical and nestable together for the greater part of their respective lengths when unassembled, each of said frame members having generally straight leg and foot portions joined together by a rounded bend, a tubular end length of each foot portion being offset and flattened at its free end, said frame members when assembled having their flattened free ends interdigitated with adjacent flat faces in substantially full length surface contact and with adjoining tubular portions of said offset end lengths also in lateral contact with each other, and means passing through said interdigitated flattened ends and through adjoining tubular portions, respectively, to secure said frame members rmly together in assembled relationship in extended surface contact throughout the extent of said flattened ends and adjoining tubular portions.

2. A base stand as defined by claim l in which the flattened free ends have parallel flat faces that extend parallel to but laterally of planes passing through the axes of the corresponding adjoining tubular portions to facilitate such interdigitated relationship and to insure extended surface contact between adjacent flat faces when arranged in such relationship.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,457,593 Nelson Dec. 28, 1948 2,596,302 Squyres May 13, 1952 2,622,878 Mooney Dec. 23, 1952 2,645,808 Rosenberg Iuly 21, 1953 2,691,203 Wilder Oct. 12, 1954 

